


rapture

by aeicx



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Homophobic Slurs, M/M, Slurs, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 10:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6514066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeicx/pseuds/aeicx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warren Graham never blacks out during class. His knack for pulling all-nighters without a single trace of a yawn the next morning has earned him a crowd of "awestruck fangirls", as Max likes to call the "other chemistry nerds". Some others prefer to write shit like "beta phag" all over his dorm door, but he also prefers not to dwell on that, so he takes the graffiti off his property with a little sigh like the good little student he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rapture

“Warren? Are you alright?”

 

Ms. Grant is nothing if not observant. He’s seen it in the way she pulls her students aside after class—the ones who’ve lingered on chemistry questions three seconds too long with eyes too glassy for their own good, along with all the others: girls bursting into tears or gritting their teeth; jocks gnawing and spitting keratin onto the linoleum, bloody fingernails and all; and kids snapping the soles of their shoes against the floor sans a set rhythm. He’s only ever been scrutinized once or twice under his chemistry teacher’s gaze, and it had been during finals or some other work-intensive week. Just stress, he’d reassured her, and she’d nodded and talked about how yes, your grades shouldn’t determine your self-worth, you are your own person, Warren, and what your parents say doesn’t matter as much as you think it might, you can always talk to me and oh how’s your mother by the way I haven’t spoken with her in a while do you—

 

“Warren?”

 

He really wishes he hadn’t come to class. Out of all days, not today. Not today, not today, not today.

 

“I,” he says, and oh, god, he’s going to pass out. The lights are going on and off, flashflashflashing and it’s too hard to think straight. He’s going to black out, right here, right now. He’s sure of it.

 

But he can’t. Not now.

 

Ms. Grant wrinkles her nose, furrows her brow.

 

“You wanna head over to the infirmary?” It’s not a question. Not with her. Her voice resonates throughout the room and bounces off the walls, once, twice, three times. The students are paying attention, watching her. Watching him.

 

Warren Graham never blacks out during class. His knack for pulling all-nighters without a single trace of a yawn the next morning has earned him a crowd of "awestruck fangirls", as Max likes to call the "other chemistry nerds". Some others prefer to write shit like "beta phag" all over his dorm door, but he also prefers not to dwell on that, so he takes the graffiti off his property with a little sigh like the good student that he is.

 

“I’ll take him,” someone says.

 

A thin arm carves a path over his spine and under his left arm. Slender fingers curl over his right hand and there is a weight pressing against him, supporting him with a rocky amount of strength that would surprise most newcomers in their classes.

 

“Dana,” he murmurs, and she says, “I’m here,” because his mouth tastes like pennies and she is heading out the door with the occasional hobble (that’s at least thirty pounds on her) to her step.

 

* * *

 

“You can quit it while you’re ahead,” he mumbles. She just looks at him. “There’s no one around, anyways.”

 

Dana scans the vicinity, darting her head this way and that before the concave of her back suddenly turns convex—she is walking, strong and tall, with nothing short of a steady foot in her path. He’s practically latching onto her side now, but she doesn’t seem to care.

 

“Deep breaths,” she says, and he grunts. “It gets easier with time.”

 

“You would know,” he groans. The floor is spinning.

 

“You need to eat.”

 

She’s watching him intently, not wholly fixated as her eyes flit back and forth. Not neglecting of her duties as she checks the peripheral. The statement is uttered in hushed tones, and he chuckles.

 

“I need to puke,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I feel sick.”

 

“You’re anemic,” she says.

 

“Dehydrated.”

 

Dana rolls her eyes, but her face darkens when he starts to groan, sagging even further against her figure. “You know what I mean. Look at yourself—your face is white. You need to eat something.”

 

He shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says, and there’s a croak in his throat that makes him wince. He licks his lips. “I can’t.” His tongue is like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth, parched in a way that should make the space between his teeth slick with spit. Beneath the desiccation lies the thrum of his heartbeat, pounding, pounding, pounding—

 

_Look at yourself._

 

“Warren!”

 

* * *

 

 

Virescent blotches bedim as the sun sucks orange from the trees above.

 

He is dreaming, flying through the forest.

 

Something smells sweet.

 

His throat tightens. The sun is receding back into the horizon. In the shadows, his skin is milky white.

"Hey." Dana is watching him. "Did you find anything?" She's got something slung over her shoulders. He shakes his head.

 

She walks over, strong and unyielding—a casual firmness with each pace even as she lugs a 300-kg elk over her thin frame. She stands tall, older, though shorter than he. They are two years apart, memories intertwined through childhood playdates and _look, auntie, Warren's playing with matches again, I told him not to do it and he's picking at the doves, the doves he's picking at them he's playing with them picking playing playing at the birds._

 

She sets the elk down with ease. Gently.

 

"Careful," she says, as though she means it. As though it's not a joke, but he doesn't quite catch on, because he's already running his fingers through the hide like it's meant for him to touch, just to touch.

 

_Slowly._

 

His nails sink in.

 

It's a sickly sweet smell.

 

* * *

 

 

When the school's nurse thrusts the glass of orange juice into Warren's hand, he has half a mind to dump its contents under the bed when she turns her back. He decides against it when he sees the tangerine stains on the tiling only partially shrouded by the folding bed.

 

"I shooed your cousin off to class, I did. She tried to stay and said you had a fever. You looked something awful when she staggered into the infirmary," the nurse says. Warren smiles weakly. She walks over and lays the back of her hand flat against his forehead—"Mm-hm, I thought so,"—and clicks her tongue.

 

He sets the glass onto the table beside his bed with shaking fingers.

 

"Could I have some water, instead?"

 

"Sure thing, honey. But you'll have to have something else to drink after that, okay? Or I can freshen you up with a batch of cookies." She winks. Warren nods.

 

This is the end.

 

"I have to check on something. Be right back."

 

He can still smell it. A fragment of the dream, the saccharine scent that casts a sweet fog over his sight, his touch. Out of all five senses, there is only olfactory, and it meshes with the back of his tongue to coalesce by the top of his throat.

 

This one, though. His stomach sinks. It's a different scent. Pleasant.

 

Right as the nurse leaves, someone groans one, two, three beds away from his own.

 

Warren is strong. He is strong and good and pure, and he is clean. He is clean, and he is about to throw up if he drinks this, so he seizes the cup of orange juice, gets out of bed, and stumbles to the sink as fast as he can to wash away the poison.

 

He freezes.

 

Bloodstains lie at the basin of the sink, murky and brown thin and _rotten_. Probably left over from a small cut, he tells himself. Probably grimy and dirty and contaminated with bacteria and just plain _filthy_ , he tells himself, but he's smacking his lips and his heart is starting to slow, and this is bad, this is bad, so, so very bad.

 

The boy in the other bed is drawing out a painful moan in all of his agony.

 

"You okay, dude?" Warren rasps. Jesus, that sounds bad. He wonders if the other guy can tell just how tired he is.

 

The kid rolls over, clutching his stomach.

 

It's Evan Harris. The self-proclaimed, walking avant-garde pretension of Blackwell Academy.

 

He must have had the blackened swai for lunch. Most had learned their lesson after the first week of staying at the dorms, but those students had spent their lunch breaks eating, not drooling over their own photo albums.

 

"Goodness, isn't this stomach bug just spreading like wildfire? Good thing I have some more Tums, you can't ever have too many of those. Hold on just one more second, why don't you seat yourself down in one of the beds while you wait?"

 

The nurse is standing outside, ushering in a boy in a red letterman jacket, with slicked-back hair, and. And.

 

Warren glares. It's not like he's going to bother with formal pretenses—

 

~~_scrubbing his dorm door clean, watching "beta phag" shave down into "e a  hag" and into"a hag" into "a    g"_ ~~

 

—because, truth be told, Nathan Prescott is kind of an asshole. Maybe a lot of an asshole.

 

So, as Nathan hobbles through the nurse's office while clutching his stomach, Warren can't help but feel a little rush of glee and smirk, despite the flash of guilt that shoots through his haze.

 

That is, until Nathan catches his eye, doubles over with a loud "Ugh!" and vomits a trajectory of puke and blood onto the flooring.

 

~~_everywhere it's everywhere everywhere it's everywhere fucking everywhere_ ~~

 

A sharp hiss suddenly pushes, breaks past the bubble in Warren's throat. It's instinctive and it echoes, rolls off his tongue and through the gaps between his teeth. It cuts through the hum of the whirring fan like a knife.

 

When Warren bares his fangs, his nails have already extended by three inches, clawing viciously before he sinks his teeth into the soft, nacreous flesh of Nathan Prescott's neck.

 

~~_please please please_ ~~

 

~~_the blood_ ~~

 

~~_it's everywhere_ ~~

 


End file.
